Bad Day for G.A.

[fireflyr]

Hi Group,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Cirrus come standard with a Ballistic Recovery Chute?  Why would somebody ride an airplane into a building when pulling the handle would at least give you a fighting chance?  We may never know what happened on board the plane, but there are some serious questions about the training and the mental attitude it takes to sacrifice your aircraft to save your life. Hopefully the wiser heads in congress (if there are any) will prevail.

KK

I wondered about that myself, and see this morning that the news networks have finally discovered that.  The keep saying "the chute did not deploy after the crash"...??  Like it would do any good after the fact.  I'm starting to wonder if this is a CO related accident.  I can't imagine a pilot flying into a building, rather than a street or river if they had any kind of control left.

Phil

I'm with Phil on the CO suspicion----can't imagine anything else could make a CFI and student get so screwed up.

[Zaffex]

I would agree with Phil too. I heard that a witness reported the aircraft was banking sharply to and fro, possibly still conscious but overcorrecting?

[Baradium]

Heard one report that he might have been in a spin (unrecoverable in a cirrus).


Another report that the chute was deployed, but did not come out of it's bag (IE, the rocket fired but the chute didn't open).  Time will tell whether it was fired pre or post impact.

They've also had a case or two of the airspeed being too high when the chute deployed, ripping the chute off the aircraft.


There was an interesting website review by a cirrus owner, I'll see if I can find it tonight when I'm back in town (in Nome right now).

[Baradium]

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/cirrus-sr20

There's the website I was talking about.

[VH-ETT]

In OZ when we do "Orbits of the City" we are under ATC radar control at no lower than 1500'. The rules here are no lower than 1500' over built up areas, or 500' over empty areas, like 2 nm off the beach over water.

Robyn

makes me speculate that he was at minimum safe altitude when conducting the flight. 

What would the minimum altitude have been there?  Excuse my ignorance - I'm only familiar with Da Rules UKside.

Do you have an equivalent over the Pond of the 'alight clear' rule for flying over built up areas?